This is a story about sunflowers. Did you know that sunflowers follow the sun throughout the day? In those early days, they follow the sun with their giant heads faithfully. East to west, left to right, the sunflowers will absorb as much sunlight as they can to produce the energy they need to stay alive. Their genetics allow their stems to bend with the arc of the sun’s rising and setting. Scientists call this sun tracking movement as heliotropism. My marriage has been a testament of what happens when we allow ourselves to seek the sun each day. 

Four years ago, I said yes to getting my heart broken. I didn’t know that at the time though. For me, I was just a newlywed that was thinking I was saying yes to eternal sleepovers, laughing, traveling, and spending time forever with my husband. 

But this isn’t the kind of heartbreak story you might expect. In this story, I end up gaining everything. Spoiler alert: I love my husband.

Marriage brings a myriad of challenges. But in the case of me and my spouse’s marriage over these last four years, it has brought the hardest things we have ever faced. And might I add, in an astonishingly short amount of time. 

Let’s start two years into our marriage gig, it’s 2020. We began the year like everyone else, the loss of Kobe Bryant, the pandemic, had Covid-19, everything closing, an earthquake in Utah, toilet paper shortage, end of the world almost feeling type stuff. You remember that chaos. Then half way through the year, my mother in law is diagnosed with terminal stage 4 lung cancer. Heartbreaking. Towards the end of the year, my father in law took his life. More heartbreak. Covid -19 round two in our home hits while we are mourning this unexpected loss during the holidays. The weight is getting heavier. We kick off the new year of 2021 to discover I am pregnant with our first, only to miscarry two days later. It was so much back to back heartbreak that my husband and I were finding it difficult to see hope.

Fast forward to now. It’s 2022 and my husband and I have our rainbow baby, a beautiful baby boy. We purchased a home last summer during a volatile market. And we are living a life we can only best describe as thriving.

But how did we jump back up from the newlywed challenges to the sudden tragedy and loss we experienced for what seemed to have no end? My husband and I learned quickly the meaning of living in a relationship with resilience.

Watching a loved one go through the grief of losing a parent and the unavoidable reality of having another parent with terminal cancer is painful. You want them to be happy. You want them to find an answer. You want them to feel loved. You may not know what to say or do. And you become incredibly protective of them. You don’t want to see them hurt.

And that’s all okay. I firmly believe that those tears, the often heard silence, the tangible sadness that we were experiencing was designed to teach us something that I think in turn may help you in your own relationships that are enduring heartbreak.  

We learned to really lean into each other. We took turns checking in with where we were mentally and emotionally. On hard days, I would listen to my husband’s fears and wishes. He would listen to mine when I was having my days too. We cried a lot together. And we held each other in our arms too. From those conversations, came healing. From those actions, came strength to continue on. We became proficient in sacrificing our own wants for our loved one’s needs.

As sunflowers mature, they stop tracking the sun as much. Instead, they keep their heads facing east, awaiting the sunrise they know will come unfailingly. For me and my husband, our greatest healer we found was in actively thanking our Heavenly Father for the blessings we were receiving. Because even though it didn’t seem like the stormy trials we were facing were ever going to settle, there was always a light shining through those dark days, guiding us together towards our Savior. With time and work, our faces naturally remained pointing to His. 

Being grateful for what we did have was what brought us closer to each other rather than succumbing to the overwhelming amounts of heartbreak we were feeling. It would have been easy to have turned our backs to each other and attempted to carry our burdens and sorrows alone. But those times we did try only left us feeling more exhausted. So we learned to face each other and open our full hearts to one another. We found joy in the little things. Movie nights, swig runs, cuddle sessions with our dogs, turning our home into a safe haven. The more we spoke about the things we loved and were grateful for, the lighter it became to bear our heartbreaks. 

I am grateful for the last four years of my marriage. Our relationship has evolved into one I never would have imagined the me before marriage would have. 

It is stronger. 

It is more intimate. 

And it is full of love and determination.

Like sunflowers, our marriage has grown through chasing the light. It’s not always perfect weather and we have our marks, but our roots have become stronger. I know that with persistent love, patience and strength exercised by me and my companion, we will be able to accomplish anything that comes our way.